other and now social security medicare and medicaid are all about to be cut affecting millions of americans right let's just talk about a fat baby that's a great local news story but does it really have to take up the time of the most trusted name fair and balanced forward leaning supposedly real news channels now i don't blame the mother for not wanting to have any more kids but how about we think about the mothers all across this country that have lost their kids in the pointless wars that we're fighting abroad is that really too much to ask especially when leon panetta fresh in his new position of secretary of defense is making the rounds talking to the troops and there are a number of very intriguing very revealing statements made by the new defense secretary over the weekend let's first start over in afghanistan maybe it was a slip up maybe it was on purpose but panetta pulled the cat out of the bag on just how long our troops will be staying there while speaking in kabul he said that seventy thousand troops will remain there until the end of two thousand and fourteen to hand over control to afghan security forces seventy thousand until the

end of two thousand and fourteen that really doesn't add up with the suppose and steady pace of withdrawal of the president promised we'd see that's after the troop surge is out by next summer in fact that sounds like the withdrawal is going to come to a complete standstill and i'll tell you why he made that statement or at least why becomes even more odd you see panetta also said over the weekend that we're this close to beating al qaeda apparently all we have to do is take out ten or twenty key leaders who were done so if that's the case mr secretary then why are our troops staying in afghanistan until at least twenty fourteen if that's the case why did you go to iraq this weekend and put more pressure on the iraqi government to ask us to keep our troops there after their withdrawal deadline at the end of the year do you know what else leon panetta said when speaking to the troops he said the reason to you guys are here is because on nine eleven the united states got attacked what that light has a use since the bush administration when it was discredited because everybody found out that there were no way. binns of mass destruction and iraq had nothing to do

with nine eleven so is he trying to blame al qaeda for the recent spate of violence we've seen in iraq for the last month being the deadliest for u.s. troops there since two thousand and eight for the rockets that hit baghdad's green zone on monday the day after panetta flew in is that justification for the troops to stay even when it's very obvious that the situation is only becoming more dangerous for them i thought we only had ten or twenty al qaeda left to take out you know it's a lot of back and forth a lot of contradictions lot of very confusing rhetoric coming from our new secretary of defense so if you want any glimpse into what the future of our wars is going to look like when our men and women are coming home then you better start paying attention to what he says but of course that's what the mainstream media chooses to miss because a sixteen pound baby is far far sighted. while

the clock continues to tick down to august second the day of the debt ceiling must be raised according to the treasury department and washington always see more gridlock and what was supposed to be a constructive round of talks over the weekend john boehner dropped out again saying that any raising taxes is completely off the table so the president gave another press conference today trying to keep both parties into gear. it's not going to get easier it's going to get harder so we might as well do it now well off the bat. eat or piece. now's the time to do it if not now when. problem it's nobody forces you to why would you eat your peas so how do we save the talks progressing and what if our politicians are actually held accountable here to discuss this with me is benji starling congressional reporter for talking points memo and you thank so much for being here tonight rather me i want to start we're going to play

a couple sound bites from the president had to say today and i think that he did kind of kick both parties of course he little crap talking on on the republicans when it comes to just dropping out all the time but he also hit the democrats and here's something that he had to say when it comes to cutting entitlements programs . and if you're a progressive who cares about the integrity. social security and medicare and medicaid and believes that it is part of what makes our country great that we look after our seniors and we look after the most vulnerable then we have an obligation to make sure that we. make those changes that are required to make it sustainable over the long term and if you're a progressive that cares about investments in head start and student loan programs and medical research and infrastructure we're not going to be able to make progress on those areas if we haven't gotten our fiscal house in order. so he's talking about all the areas where he wants to make progress we want to start new programs

but he says we have to get our fiscal house in order first has it become very very clear now that this president actually believes and austerity. well he certainly has adopted the republican party's frames for most of these issues a lot of progressives made fun of republicans for selling that their own medicare plan is saving medicare and strengthening medicare when really it was draconian cuts now obviously president obama is not proposing anything even slightly in the neighborhood of that i mean we don't know exactly what we're talking about with medicare but it's probably pretty minor in comparison and no fundamental change but he's adopting this basic idea that look we've got to strengthen these programs by maybe cutting them or maybe finding new ways to finance them so he definitely is giving in a bit there and that's all this buy and this and that we've talked about many times on our show if you look at the u.k. he isn't exactly working out for them so we have examples here of where it's not working properly to get other economies to get them to jump start again i have the president is now adopting this tune and then why does he want to put social security on the table if he had himself admits that it doesn't actually contribute

to the deficit i mean his he completely given up on any liberal progressive ideas was he was never a liberal to begin with well there is a somewhat progressive case for messing around with social security right now maybe not in the context of these talks but in general even some of obama's own advisers like peter orszag who left earlier this year last year have said that look social security finances aren't perfect but it would take just a few little changes maybe even read raising the retirement age a bit and you pretty much have the thing fixed up so there is some case to be made that it's better than waiting for republican. to take over and doing god knows what to it may be cutting benefits much more drastically but is that supposed to be part of this massive discussion that we're having right now when nobody is focusing on jobs and instead they want to make it about the debt ceiling and deficit well if it's what it takes to get something out of the republicans then maybe i mean that's one of the biggest bargaining chips he has is they've been they're desperate not to touch social security it in do it in the paul ryan plan just today someone dropped

out of the republican bill that would partially privatizing social security because they were getting so much feedback back home i mean this is something they don't want to touch without democrats coming in so if you could dangle that support from democrats you might be able to get say some revenue increases but right now the whole thing looks like it's collapsing anyway this is something that really kills me and so of course part of the argument is that there is no debate going on here there is no discussion because republicans have put their foot down and said that tax increases are completely off the table so i mean if there's no compromise right you guys won't do anything but eric cantor had a different way of reasoning out of this today in a press conference after obama's speech he said the fact that we're even discussing voting on the debt ceiling is a compromise i'm sorry how many times is the debt ceiling raised under the bush administration well it's also the cancer's on the record saying that not raising the debt ceiling is just not an option he's basically saying my own members are economically illiterate so we have to explain this to them but me personally i of course realize that we have to eventually raise the debt ceiling he's been

aspecific lee whether independent of obama asking him he would raise the debt ceiling and he's been very clear of course you know the full faith and credit the united states needs to be guaranteed so it's kind of a disingenuous argument so i just love apparently according them that's that's the master compromise that they're making but you know the thing is if you look at certain polls out there a lot of republican voters say that they shouldn't raise the debt ceiling they don't want it done but do republicans actually want to mean they have big business on their side they have wall street on their side which is trying desperately to convince them to just get this done because not raising the debt ceiling would be bad for all of them. so i'm just confused as to how long are they going to let this play out to pretend like they're pandering to the base and then just go along and flip it at the end well this is certainly the script that they use for past standoffs i mean with the continuing resolution everything looked lost the negotiations were breaking down no one can agree to anything and then the last minute literally at the eleventh hour is right before the midnight deadline they work something out and sold it and it was easier because there was less time before

they passed it to look it over you can say we fought them down in the last minute so i think it's very reasonable to assume we're going to see something similar here and yet somehow they like to pretend like politics shouldn't be involved here at least that's what the president tried to pretend today let's take a nother listen to something he said. this is the united states of america and we don't manage our affairs in three month increments. we don't risk. us default. on our obligations. because we can't put politics aside. that's funny because i thought that's exactly what we do in this country is we actually risk because we can't put politics aside as we always just keep extending things for maybe thirty days sixty days ninety days because we can't actually solve any big problems well obama loves to be the guy who breaks that cycle that's always how he's presented himself from his very earliest days on every issue and this is

a perfect example they come to him with an issue and he says well let's just totally transcend this go big mess with every single party you sacred cows and come together and not everyone is so into this idea but does he when does he when let's say that the debt ceiling isn't raised who is it going to be blamed on are people actually going to point the finger at republicans or are they come going to point to the president or is he doing a really good job here of saying that i've tried i've done everything that i can i think you certainly set up decent narrative and early polling it's hard to tell in an actual fight but early polling shows that most people are blaming the republicans of things go wrong obama's present himself as the adult the room able to name specific concessions is like look i've actually said medicare social security these things are on the table the other side has refused to even float any tax increases you know everything is just vague things that are leaked to the press they won't stand behind even the basic idea of giving ground so he certainly has an advantage there but after a number the president always gets blamed when there's an economic disaster and

that's really what we're talking about with a default maybe the first few weeks he'd be ok a few months later come election time when there's been a double dip recession say as some economists are warning people might not remember who exactly started this i think you make a good point there let me throw an idea your way and this is something that warren buffett actually said he said i could end the deficit in five minutes you just pass a law that says that any time there is a deficit of more than three percent of g.d.p. all sitting members of congress are. well for reelection in china right now they're linking some officials performance levels with the amount of local debt that they have i mean what if we had some of these incentives for our politicians that they actually got punished for not doing their jobs that's sort of what we have right now all the republicans are assuming they're going to get primaried if they sign on to anything that actually solves the problem because that's exactly scary enough primaries you could say sure as some of the tea partiers got in the last midterm elections but you still only have two parties at the end of the day voters still don't have that many places to go should there be some kind of punishment while

they're actually sitting there in the seat it's a funny idea in theory in reality it would just mean you get even less experienced and more populous figures every time around when the big problem right now the biggest problem is that republicans have this infusion of new inexperienced members who just frankly don't understand the stakes a lot of people are very concerned that they just don't get that the debt ceiling is something that has to be raised and just what happens if it isn't so you might just repeat that performance every two years all right well i guess warren buffett is wrong then have it maybe someone should give him a try at some point benjie thanks so much for joining us thanks for having me. well just ahead while washington tries to raise the debt ceiling minnesota is entering week two of a government shutdown will have a look at how this shutdown is hurting small businesses in the state and the phone hacking scandal in britain grows now there are allegations that reporters from murdoch owned papers attempted to hack former prime minister gordon brown and victims of nine eleven so could that be the end of murdoch's media empire get into

it. for the second time in six years the state of minnesota had to shut down its government this morning the government of minnesota has shut down because lawmakers failed to close a five billion dollars deficit so that means twenty two thousand state workers are

now out of a job. that's right just last week state lawmakers rebutting heads over a five billion dollars budget deficit ultimately forcing the entire state to come to a standstill and the democrats including governor mark dayton and house republicans argued over proposal of how to fix this ailing budget by taxing the state's top earners and so as you can imagine the minnesota g.o.p. said no way and the state missed its deadline to pass a budget so every day minnesotans i.e. not politicians are now living it over this stalled argument saying that their representatives have checked out and analysts are pointing fingers at both sides of the aisle for not using all of their assets to solve the problem to move republicans to put some fear into the that they've got to step forward and republican lawmakers up for reelection next year you would think that would put heat on the legislators but apparently they're more concerned about pleasing their own set of republican constituency. all right so now we are week two and the fall

out from the shutdown continues currently twenty two thousand workers have lost their jobs sixty six parts of closed one hundred highway projects have been put on hold all of this also affected by the way the fourth of july holiday activities now the public sector always feels the pain from the government faces a deposit like this one let's take a look at how far and why the shutdown really reaches for example private businesses are hurting too. because brewer who can't open his business without approval from the state first you know we've been planning a long time we have our entire life savings on the line here and trying to prepare you for see all these events could. cause problems and this one just kind of caught us off. of after is just one of many people who'll be forced to shut their doors until the name calling in the state's capital subsides as close signs continue to pop up it's a clear reminder of the domino effect that's happening here stating government

offices shut down private businesses that stir serve state employees are losing customers forcing them to shut down as well and moody's analytics even estimate the two weeks without the government working will kill sixty million dollars that would normally be pushed into the economy it's a good reminder that a shutdown doesn't just affect government workers it affects everybody the concept is simple now that minnesota's government has reached a new record for the longest state shut down ever on people are cringing because frankly there's just no end in sight yet and this is just one state just one example can you imagine if something like this happened on a federal level oh wait that's right it almost did earlier this year but now congress is battling it out over raising the debt ceiling and risking a default a default would look a lot worse the what's going on in minnesota. what's being called rupert murdoch's watergate it all began last week with milly dowler a girl who had gone missing it was later found murdered and whose cell phone the murdoch owned news of the world reportedly hacked then more information came out of

the hacking it included even victims of the london subway bombings relatives of soldiers killed in iraq and afghanistan but the real kicker could be the information that was released today it spreads throughout the murdoch british media empire journalists all across news international reportedly targeted former prime minister gordon brown attempting to access everything from his voicemail to his bank account even his family's medical records and some say that this. only scratching the surface of the worst information as yet to come so far this scandal is led to government led investigations a public outcry murdoch shuttering the news of the world paper and high ranking officials are now urging the mogul to drop his twelve billion dollar bet for british sky broadcasting which for now they've just passed on to the competition authorities to reveal but could this finally be the story to bring down his media empire in the u.k. and what are the chances that things are going on just like that here in the u.s.

joining me to discuss it is david wolman contributing editor at daily kos and the editor in chief of congress matters david thanks so much for joining us tonight now a lot of people like i said are calling this rupert murdoch's watergate is that fair. well it ought to be i mean this is really as more details come out and more people see more and more what he's been up to and what the empire he controls has been up to i mean i think that the word is on a lot of people's lips that he's really dug in to some things that people i'm personally offensive on a number of levels even if it hasn't happened to them it's happened two years that are important enough or in the case of the murdered young girl hopeless to know that it really tugs at the heartstrings and just turn stomachs everywhere and that's that's a lot of the same feeling people have during the worst of watergate you know but the thing is rupert murdoch this is a master of spin this guy knows how to get out of every situation bad press is nothing for him but could this be the story that finally really does bring his

empire down at least in the u.k. . well in the u.k. it's possible yes i mean things people react to things differently there we've just seen a number of you know uprisings across the middle east and in through europe things are just different elsewhere whether or not that spreads to the united states and takes down the united states empire that's a long shot and if there's one thing that people like rupert murdoch special who specialize in it's surviving in adversity you know money shelters you it builds a terrific wall between you and accountability murdoch has built his life on that night i expect that he'll be trying to rely on that. but what about i mean there are reports from the daily mirror today which so far nobody has confirmed they're from an anonymous source that. the reporters who work for murdoch in fact actually tried to pay off police to hack into the phones in the context of victims on nine eleven that's something that you would think would really tug on the heartstrings

of americans yeah that's going to be what erupts in america and i think what changes the nature of the scandal for him in the united states and there's already connections in that he has sent the his chief of operations over in england during the last go around of these hacking scandals who went before the british parliament and swore that in an internal investigation it turned up no evidence of any more never spread past the news of the world is now of course been rewarded with the the seat as publisher of the wall street journal which of course at least used to be a very prestigious paper here in united states and the fact that it's connected to nine eleven victims is really just unbelievable and it's going to take some time for that to sink in for people here i think that it's sort of thing that you want to dismiss just out of sheer horror but yeah that story that is corroborated is going to change the nature of america's relationship with rupert murdoch and the media properties he owns here absolutely and it should and should well considering

that we now have ourselves involved in and. it's wars around the world that our civil liberties have been stripped of us all thanks to nine eleven you would think that something like that would at least be able to take down a media empire but then the propaganda machine of course comes into play but do you think that this could already be happening in the u.s. that maybe other companies are up to it maybe not even murdoch owned ventures or is this something that's really specific to the style of journalism or spin and misinformation that he's espoused. well you know right now there is no evidence that it's gone beyond the murdoch empire but then again for a long time even the murdoch empire insisted it had gone beyond the news of the world and for some time they insisted that there wasn't even there and so at every turn we find out that there's a little bit more a little bit more but it all has been contained so far to the murdoch empire now he's in competition in competition with people who i'm sure would like to have the same access to the scoops that he's got but so far it just hasn't turned up and so

for thankfully has not been the culture even of the tabloid press in the united states seems to be kind of a british thing seems to be something that rupert murdoch has cheerfully exploited and in a number of his properties i hope that it's limited to his properties for a number of reasons not least of which is i really don't think that americans are going to stand for the pain of having the nine eleven bodies zoomed for scoop in the tabloid press that's really a tremendously upsetting prospect i mean the other hand i will say that i mean box properties which of course are murdoch properties and his opinion journalists there haven't really been terribly respectful of nine eleven did all along all the time you know they of course bill themselves is the patriotic american channel and you would think that this would be very important to them but pretty regularly opinion journalists coming out of that outlets have been pretty outspoken in saying hey i'm

really tired of the way nine eleven victims' families are exploiting this and that i mean really incredible things so i guess if you had to pick one network one media empire that you might actually dive into the trash like this i guess off the bat would be the murdoch properties and turns out all right do you think that there is any blame they can put on audiences or at least in this case on a viewer is you know the news of the world did it really well this paper sold a lot of copies over the year and the u.k. and it's because of that insatiable appetite that people have for these types of scoops for the gossip and the dirt rather than let's say you know perhaps real news stories and the fact. well that's always possible but i will i'll be the first to let you know and i'm sure rupert would agree rupert murdoch of the supply side who lives in his practice of his business to do if he puts it out there people will gobble it up ask around and ask around whether there's

a real demand were hacking the phone mail messages of the dead of nine eleven i don't think that's going to poll real well you know you can ask people whether that's something they want to and it might actually be something he secretly desire you provided to them but no one has had the gall to do it except rupert murdoch so yeah is he making sales you probably is is it something that almost everyone who were even those who would buy into this might find this gusting maybe they want to cover that up not talk about it they're consuming it yeah i think so just to stay away from it he just hasn't been able to now the thing is you know in the u.k. so far there have been government best occasions launching this there's been calls for new regulations but a lot of people are criticizing that because they're saying well if you look at how this story even came to be it's thanks to real investigative journalism you don't need government meddling hearing you don't you need more regulation and so one of the daily telegraph even said don't let politicians turn the british press into an

american style lapdog of the establishment what do you say to that. well certainly i didn't do it as the idea that the press needs to avoid the lapdog but i think there's plenty of middle ground between that and hacking the voice mails of the queen and her children and grandchildren the dead of nine eleven murder victims teenagers etc i think that there is a lot of room and you know both the american and british press have proven it over decades there's a lot of room for good solid investigative journalism doesn't have anything to do with this kind of current digging in the in the in the voice mails of the dead i mean honestly that's really kind of where the story ends you need to exude people first story you might be investigating wrong and people are saying to you that this could be just the tip of the iceberg of the worst is still to come so of course we'll all be bracing ourselves and see what this does mean in the long run from

murdoch's empire thanks so much for joining us david thank you very much. well still to come tonight i respond to some of your comments about and show and tell or excuse me anything else that i read it and then a not guilty verdict in the casey anthony murder trial has outraged a lot of people here in the u.s. so some politicians are rushing to pass caylee's law measure that they claim would protect children as a really just bad legislation built on revenge radley balko joins us if you. don't see official. pulled from the. video on demand. r.s.s. feeds now in the palm of your.

and broadcasting live direct from the heart of moscow this is our team glad to have you with us sagal get to our breaking news headlines divers find the bodies of as many as forty children trapped when the pleasure boat they were on sank in central russia today has been declared a day of mourning for the victims of the accident. or the gold coast much remind all much higher. relative struggles to come to terms with the loss of their loved ones officials say the captains of two passing boats good failed to come to the aid of survivors will face severe punishment surviving passengers and crew have described their desperate attempts to save one another. preliminary findings into the accident say

a combination of human error mechanical failure and bad weather caused the disaster president medvedev has ordered checks of the country's a water transport system following the accident. coming up in about thirty minutes my colleague carrie johnson will be in here today with a full look at your news right now it's back to the alyona show and we poured on the hackers collective anonymous who breached u.s. military contractor and downloaded confidential information including the log ins and passwords of thousands of army personnel. artis time for you said it i read it take time to respond to my brilliant and engaging viewer comments from facebook twitter and you tube because when you've got something to say i listen now first i want to respond to a viewer who commented on my fireside friday from last week discuss the execution

of a mexican citizen virtually all garcia jr in texas and h. t. hat zero five sat on you tube he raped and murdered a girl what sympathy does he deserve now like so many other people out there i think at this viewer has told he missed the point as i said during my fireside this is not about sympathy this is even about the man's guilt in the sickness of his crimes which has been recognised on all sides nobody is claiming his innocence this is about the united states holding itself to the same international standards that i hold other countries to we demand and i mean that we demand the other countries allow our citizens to seek counsel of the american embassy if they're arrested for a crime while in another country so how is it that we continue to make those demands if we don't offer citizens of other countries those exact same protections while they're here in the us that's called hypocrisy so yes this man's crimes are heinous no one is disputing that particular but abiding by international law the law that we cite constantly when our are citizens.